


this is a promise he makes you

by Riana1



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Grief/Mourning, when grief lets you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the promise he makes to you.</p><p>You will grieve.</p><p>Mako Mori in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quigonejinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/gifts).



> The film did not make want to write fic but the fandom does.

 

 

This is the promise he makes to you.

You will grieve. You will swim in your sorrow until it fills your lungs to gag you, until it saturates your eyeballs under a film of anguish that mutes every color in the world, and your treacherous heart will continue to beat no matter how it breaks and breaks and breaks.

Some days you will not have to strength to get out of bed. Every breath will be labored and fought to be exhaled. Some days all food will taste like ash in your mouth and bile will burn your throat raw. Some days, a scent, a snatch of a song, a snare of memory will wind its way around your soul and hold fast until you believe you want to die.

This is the promise he makes you: you won’t.

Because he has walked this lonely, bitter road and knows all the potholes and pit stops along the way. He will not carry you but he will walk by your side. He will bring the blankets and curl up with you in the dark. He will cook your favorite foods (or at least attempt to, the smoke alarm will go off and the finished product is mostly charcoal and you will laugh despite yourself). He will hold you when you cry and guard the door when you do so and don’t want anyone to know.

He will be there.

And one day you will speak of your father and the words will not choke you. One day you will relate a story and your sorrow will not spear your heart and steal your breath away. You will laugh again, you will fight again, you will go for days and days and not think of your father at all except in passing. You will pass beneath the blooming sakura late for a lunch date with Raleigh and stop-

And remember doing the exact same thing with your father.

And you will smile, Mako Mori.

This is a promise.

“What a strange thing!  
to be alive  
beneath cherry blossoms.”   
― Kobayashi Issa, _Poems_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the battle and the need for vengeance.

This will not heal you.

The cracks in you are still there, carved out in characters only you know (mother, father, ami next door, you are filled with kanji of an entire city) and you will not fill them in with kaiju blue.

Blood has never been a good mortar.

Still you will admit flaying the monster into sashimi was cathartic to say the least.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr, always tumblr.
> 
> Notes:
> 
> raleigh has had five years to learn how to grieve properly
> 
> mako has had a half hour of bone deep terror and utter conviction in incoming oblivion
> 
> cue: make outs!!

You kiss him.

Once you are alone, after all the debriefings, after the testings, after the party passes out from sheer exhaustion and the still that Newton built in the backroom (paid for my undergrad, he grins at you before rolling on the floor to cuddle a comatose Gottlieb) you kiss your partner.

He falls back against the wall in surprise. You maneuver your arms to press in his sides, trapping his arms between you. He can't move unless he shoves you directly away and you know bone-deep (Drift-deep) that he won't. The kiss is raw, mostly teeth and tongue, mapping out the concaves of his mouth with your own. He tastes of salt: sweat, sea, and tear- you curl your hands into his shirt to stop the wreckage of your own thoughts.

His mouth moves beneath yours and you can taste a word on his lips. Ma-o, Mah-oh, Mako, the litany of your own name undoes you. He puts his hands against the small of your back and tucks you in under his chin while ugly, retching sounds work their way out of your throat.

Raleigh holds you close and does not let go.


End file.
